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igenlodeI remember being vaguely disappointed in this when I first read it, and I find myself a bit disappointed again; there are many elements in the book that are as good as anything Elizabeth Goudge ever wrote -- Ezra and the bees, Nan's parlour, exploring the Manor and Lion Tor, the four children and their relationship with daunting Uncle Ambrose -- but I think the problem is with the antagonists. Maybe it's because it's a children's book (though I don't remember having this problem with "The Little White Horse"), but Emma and her allies are not particularly scary after the first encounter or two, and are too easily overcome. And, more fundamentally, I think that attributing all the problems in everyone's lives to evil outside agency is much less effective than having them stem from human weaknesses, as they do in Miss Goudge's novels for adults.
It's hard not to compare the white/black witchcraft in this book to Froniga and Mother Skipton in "The White Witch" (and the little girl/adult man marriage, which makes sense with those particular characters and in that era, but here adds nothing to the plot and really doesn't work out chronologically; Francis went missing as a little boy thirty years ago). This is very much the cut down version of magic in comparison to the moral questions and pity raised by the other book, and I'm not sure that's inherent in the children's format (compare Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising"). The mandrake scene is good, and I think that that part of the plot was just rather underdeveloped. As an author, Elizabeth Goudge doesn't really do 'evil' (even characters who physically brutalise the protagonists tend to be treated as unthinking brutes who have a redeeming animal magnificence about them), and in resorting to it here I feel she was out of her depth.
(Also,there are just too many of them. Emma and her cat are one thing, but you've also got Tom Biddle, and William Lawson and his wife and their bulldog, who get virtually no characterisation at all.)
A lot of the book is very good, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with the plot in principle; the dénouement is all set up well in advance. It's just the actual execution of that ending that seems rushed and not quite satisfactory when you read it, which means I end up feeling that this is one of Miss Goudge's lesser books somehow.
(And looking at the Goodreads reviews on this one, I can't help rolling my eyes at the American moms going "Avaunt! Avaunt! Keep this evil witchcraft away from the children!")
It's hard not to compare the white/black witchcraft in this book to Froniga and Mother Skipton in "The White Witch" (and the little girl/adult man marriage, which makes sense with those particular characters and in that era, but here adds nothing to the plot and really doesn't work out chronologically; Francis went missing as a little boy thirty years ago). This is very much the cut down version of magic in comparison to the moral questions and pity raised by the other book, and I'm not sure that's inherent in the children's format (compare Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising"). The mandrake scene is good, and I think that that part of the plot was just rather underdeveloped. As an author, Elizabeth Goudge doesn't really do 'evil' (even characters who physically brutalise the protagonists tend to be treated as unthinking brutes who have a redeeming animal magnificence about them), and in resorting to it here I feel she was out of her depth.
(Also,there are just too many of them. Emma and her cat are one thing, but you've also got Tom Biddle, and William Lawson and his wife and their bulldog, who get virtually no characterisation at all.)
A lot of the book is very good, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with the plot in principle; the dénouement is all set up well in advance. It's just the actual execution of that ending that seems rushed and not quite satisfactory when you read it, which means I end up feeling that this is one of Miss Goudge's lesser books somehow.
(And looking at the Goodreads reviews on this one, I can't help rolling my eyes at the American moms going "Avaunt! Avaunt! Keep this evil witchcraft away from the children!")
